12. Solar Perturbations
*** Mission Log: Sol 5175 ***
*** AOS – BSN ***
*** Message Received (Source: Starlight): Alright, this time go long! ***
Opportunity watched the small rubber ball encased in Starlight’s magic sail through the air, having no trouble following and calculating the path.
The rover put its new wheels to good use and took off, effortlessly moving over the grassy field. It swerved, coming to a halt, and put out its new arm, catching the ball after it bounced off the back wall of Twilight’s castle.
A leisurely drive back across the courtyard saw Oppy return to Starlight’s side and depositing the ball next to her. The rover watched her expectantly while Starlight made notes on a clipboard. “Go again?”
Starlight giggled. “Don’t you think we have enough data to conclusively say your new arm works just fine?”
It looked down at the ball, then back to the pony. “Experiment fun.”
“Alright,” Starlight relented, “we can play some more catch later. But first, there’s another experiment I thought we could do to test the fine motor control.” She picked up her latest kite and hovered it in front of the rover with her magic.
“Opportunity no let go this time,” it said, resolutely grabbing the string with its new claw attachment.
Starlight smiled. She felt good. The constant headaches and sleepless nights that had intermittently plagued her over the last couple of weeks seemed a distant memory, and she felt the urge to simply enjoy the late summer day with her robotic friend.
The testing to work the last few kinks out of Oppy’s new and restored hardware was little more than an excuse to play. With the exception of the two instruments that still proved elusive in their function, the rover looked as if it was fresh out of the cleanroom at JPL.
“Helloooo!” A deep yet feminine voice echoed across the courtyard, and Starlight turned to see the two unicorns approaching.
“Sunburst!” She immediately went up to the robed wizard who was her oldest friend and caught him in an embrace. “I thought you weren’t coming until later this week.” Ending the hug, she turned to the other arrival. “And you brought your mom, what a surprise. Hello, Auntie Stellar. What brings you here?”
“Hello, Starlight dear. Sunburst had to switch trains and had a stopover in Sire’s Hollow. When he told me the reason for his visit, I was intrigued. Is that it?” Stellar Flare marched right up to Oppy.
“Hello,” the rover introduced itself, “Opportunity.”
Sunburst sighed when his mother was out of immediate earshot and engaging the rover in a conversation about progress. “Yeah, she invited herself to come along. Sorry about that.”
“Oh, it’s no big deal,” Starlight replied nervously, her ears standing straight up and her eyes scanning the area. “Plenty of space in Twilight’s castle. So, you stopped by Sire’s Hollow?”
Sunburst rolled his eyes. “Relax. Your dad wasn’t there. He was out of town for some kind of meeting of his local history society.”
“Oh!” Starlight beamed. “I mean, that’s SUCH a shame. What an unfortunate timing!”
“Could you maybe not look so happy about the fact that my mom is here while your dad couldn’t make it?” Sunburst dead-panned.
“Look, son! There’s writing!” Stellar Flare called out before Starlight could answer and gave him a look that could only be summed up as: Scheming to get my son a job. “You can put your skills to good use. Maybe your friend Starlight can talk to the princess about getting you a research grant?”
“I already have a full-time job in the Crystal Empire, mom!” Sunburst replied.
“Well, it doesn’t hurt to have something to fall back on.”
Sunburst groaned and started to walk over with a giggling Starlight at his side. “I’ve always wanted to ask you something,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “How does she do that?”
“Do what?”
“That look with the overbite, the one she uses when she’s just made a point and is feeling smug about it.”
“Why do you want to know? Does it annoy you as much as it does me?”
“What?” Starlight was taken aback. “No! I love that look. It’s sassy as buck. I want to use it the next time I school Twilight in something. Do you think she’d teach me?”
“Don’t you have your own look of smug superiority?” he asked, pushing up his glasses with his hoof.
“Well, yeah. But that’s based on my old evil villain smirk. I don’t want to use that anymore. It never really worked right without the bangs,” she mused. “And I’ve always admired your mom’s style.”
“Hm,” Sunburst replied. “I always felt rather comfortable around your dad, you know. I always enjoyed listening to him go on about obscure town history.”
“Yeah, I’ve come around to those recently. Whenever I can’t sleep, I try to remember one of his lectures, and I’m out like a light in minutes.”
“Oh, I just had a marvelous idea!” Stellar Flare said in what seemed to be another flash of brilliance. “We should visit the throne room later. Maybe the Cutie Mark Map is waiting for you to show up so it can give you another mission.”
“Not how it works, mom,” he replied automatically, then turned back to Starlight with a raised eyebrow. “Wanna trade?”
Starlight giggled as they came to a halt in front of Opportunity and Stellar Flare. “Oppy, this is my friend Sunburst,” she introduced him. “He knows a ton of languages. Would you be okay with him examining your markings?”
Opportunity looked at Sunburst and then back to Starlight. “Starlight friend is Opportunity friend.”
“Glad to hear it, and nice to meet you,” Sunburst began. “Starlight has told me a lot about you. So, anything new you’ve learned since your last letter?” he asked Starlight as he took out a notebook.
Starlight thought about that for a moment. “Not much. We’ve pretty much ruled out Old Ponish, Minotaur A and Minotaur B and even Griffo-Zebrican. Though we did realize that the technical markings seem to include numbers that roughly correspond to Saddle-Arabian numerals,” she summed up.
“That’s not surprising. Any species that can build something like Opportunity would have to have a thorough understanding of mathematics. What about the two prominent labels on the front?” he asked, pointing.
“Well,” Starlight explained, “according to Oppy, they’re spelled Jay-Pea-El and Nasa respectively. Though we’re no closer to learning what they mean. Do you recognize the script? If we can translate the technical writing, maybe I can finally make some headway on figuring out what path my spell took and find that world again.”
Sunburst frowned. “It looks sort of familiar, but it seems to be stylized.”
“Hey, that’s what Sunset said. I really should introduce you sometime. Have a look at these.” She beckoned her friend to step around the rover to see the sun dial. “We figured out that this is a representation of Oppy’s home world, the blue dot being his actual home and the red one the place I made contact with him, Mars. Although they’re written in different languages, we believe this word and all the smaller ones all say ‘Mars.’”
The wizard examined the words for a while and finally concurred with the conclusion. “Okay, there’s not a lot we can learn from that if it’s all just one word. It’s not really enough to figure out any of the other languages. We should focus on the larger script. I still can’t shake the feeling that I know this somehow. What does this other part say?”
“Say ‘Two Worlds One Sun,’” Opportunity replied. “Is why Opportunity measure time in Sol.”
Sunburst blinked rapidly. “Wait! That word! Sol! What is it?”
“A Sol?” Starlight asked. “That’s what Oppy sometimes calls a day. But I don’t really know why.”
“Sol, sol, sol, where have I heard that before?” he muttered. “So a Sol is a day? That doesn’t sound right. What defines a day?”
“Well, a day is just the time it takes Celestia to move the sun around the entire planet, isn’t it?” Stellar Flare, who had remained silent during the actual examination so far, pointed out. "You know, if you get right down to it."
Sunburst’s head snapped around to her with wide eyes. “Sunburst, what is it?” Starlight asked. “Did you figure something out?”
“The sun!” he yelled. “Mother, you’re a genius! Sol doesn’t mean Day. It means Sun. Now I remember where I heard it.”
“Where?”
“Thorax!” He turned to stare at the words on the sun dial again. “And I know this script. It’s Ancient Changeling!”
“Changeling?” Starlight asked in bafflement.
“Like Kevin?” Oppy chimed in, remembering the story Cranky had told him.
“Yes,” Sunburst confirmed with a vigorous nod. “When Thorax was living in the Crystal Empire, he taught me some Ancient Changeling. Sol Invicta – The Unconquered Sun. That’s what they called Celestia a thousand years ago.”
“So you can translate it?” Starlight asked with a huge grin. “We can finally figure out how to contact Oppy’s creators?”
Two sets of pony eyes and one set of high resolution cameras turned on him. “I’m … afraid not,” he admitted, looking over the notes he’d made.
Starlight’s ears folded back against her head almost immediately, and she suppressed a disappointed whimper. “Oh.”
“Look,” Sunburst said in an effort to remain positive. “Thorax only ever taught me a couple of words, and I don’t see any of them here. But I do recognize the characters, and I’m positive that at least some of them are from the Ancient Changeling alphabet. That’s still progress. You could ask Thorax himself to take a look.”
“I guess,” Starlight said with little enthusiasm. She felt metal against her foreleg as Oppy caught her attention.
“Opportunity can wait,” it said. “Fifteen years on Mars, learn patience.” It held out the string of the kite to her, remembering a moment they’d shared on the roof of the castle. “Starlight say fly kite relax. Mission goal fun.”
The unicorn smiled in return. “You’re right. There’s no hurry, and I promised to teach you how to fly a kite today. I’ll write to Thorax later, and we’ll take it from there.” She turned back to Sunburst and Stellar Flare. "Feel like joining us?"
To: His Majesty, King Thorax, Hive Praetorius CF
From: Starlight Glimmer, Castle Road 1, Ponyville EQ
Dear Thorax,
I apologize for writing to you when you told me in your last letter that you were busy with matters of state and likely out of the Hive for a while. I do hope you are well and whatever is keeping you busy will resolve itself soon.
On the off-chance that this letter does reach you, however, there is a request I have to make. Thanks to our friend Sunburst, I’ve had a major breakthrough in possibly finding the origin of Opportunity. It appears some of the script I’ve mentioned to you before might possibly be a form of Ancient Changeling!
I know it’s a wild notion, since I’m convinced at this point that Opportunity could not have possibly originated from the Hive, or anywhere else on Equus for that matter. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but I’d like to check with you just in case.
I’ve enclosed a transcription of all the markings, and I’d be grateful for any documentation you can offer on the Ancient Changeling Language, as our own scholars do not know anything about it other than a few select words. (Trust me, I scoured Twilight’s library from top to bottom on the subject. The few words and phrases you taught Sunburst are tenfold what was previously known to pony linguists.) Where did it come from? How long was it in use? Is there any connection to any other language known to us?
Your friend,
Starlight Glimmer
Later that night, a knock on her door made Starlight look up from her desk. “Come in, it’s open,” she called.
When she turned, she spotted a wall-eyed mare with a friendly smile in a postal uniform in the doorframe. “Ah, Derpy! Perfect timing. Gimme a sec.”
Derpy nodded and walked over to Opportunity who had moved to the other side of the room to play a round of Solitaire while Starlight had been penning her letter. “Hello, Oppy,” the mailmare greeted the rover and patted its panoramic camera. “How are you today?”
“Opportunity well,” the rover replied, “fly kite today, meet two new friends.”
“That’s great. Here, I’ve got some of my lunch left. You can have it.” Derpy rummaged through her bag and brought out a blueberry muffin that looked only slightly stale, putting it in front of the rover.
Opportunity rocked back and forth happily on its wheelbase. “Thank you. Opportunity like blueberry. Remind Opportunity of Mars.”
Derpy watched the rover examine the muffin as if the secret to life on Mars was contained within it and smiled. It didn’t take long for Starlight to join them, having finished and sealed her letter. “Here you go,” she said, handing the small parcel over.
The grey pegasus received it with her usual care and stowed it away in her bag, bringing out a small package in turn. “And this is for you.”
“Oh,” Starlight took hold of it and turned it around. “Who is it from? There’s no address.”
“Jewel Sky. She asked me to drop it off.”
“Oh!” Starlight’s eyes lit up as she tore away at the paper. “I’ve been waiting for this! Strange, though. Jewel Sky usually makes it a point to hoof-deliver her work.”
Derpy nodded. “I know. But she’s been feeling a little under the weather today. Something about a headache. She asked me to take it when I delivered her mail today.”
“Oh, I hope she feels better soon.” Starlight grinned as she gingerly lifted the silver necklace out of its box to examine it. “I need to thank her in person.”
“That’s pretty,” Derpy commented, watching the piece of jewelry float in the air.
“Isn’t it?” Starlight held it up for Oppy to see as well. “Recognize it? It’s the gift you gave me. I had Jewel set it into a necklace for me. This way, I can always keep it close to my heart.”
She trotted over to her dresser, glancing at the new picture from today adorning her mirror that showed her with Oppy, Sunburst and Stellar Flare. Unhooking the clasp with her magic, she put the pendant around her neck and admired the effect.
“Starlight pretty,” Opportunity said simply.
She gave him a smile, pressing the ornament against herself as she felt a warm feeling wash over her. “Thank you, Oppy.”
Martian Blueberry, in case you ever wondered what Oppy's favorite flavor was.[Link]
... I really wish I was more witty when it comes to these Author's Notes.
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Oh shit. Headaches and nausea? Fuck that thing Oppy gave Glimmy is radioactive.
9703816
It is the Cobalt-57 fuel source for Oppy's spectrometer... Co-57 is an extremely radioactive Gamma and X-ray emitter with a half-life of 272 days, so MOST of it has been depleted since Oppy arrived on Mars, but it is still dangerous
I keep thinking of Oppy in a high magical enviroment, greatly enhacing the faliure, transformation modes of ion creep in the computer circuits, big chunky blocks of doped silicon slowly being forced by magical chaos fields to strain and twist and change distributions so that 120 nm or whatever rad resistant details slowly converts to three dimentional structures where sub atomic relative positions of atoms give extra effects?
Same chip, totally different processing ability and capacity?
Pity Oppy doesnt know the warning of the story of The Red Weed.
Cobalt-57 can be made by cyclotron irradiation of iron, and it decays into iron.
Well crap, are two ponies getting radiation poisoning now?
And why on Earth would Ancient Changeling be similar to English?
Ancient Changeling, huh? Interesting...
9703936
Because English is a mutant trade language that avidly
stealsborrows words from every other language it ever encounters, and only really follows it's own grammatical structure when convenient?9704014
Oh, that makes sense.
9704014 English doesn't borrow words from other languages, it follows them down dark alleys, knocks them over the head and goes through their pockets for loose vocabulary.
9704068
So, in a sense, Changelings would be the perfect analog for the English language. For rather than conquering others and indoctrinating the local speech, it was taken as a necessity to learn every language in the world to fit in better with different cultures. And tha the writing system developed as a mix of all the words that changelings liked with none of the grammar rules.
9704249
Begone, Windows. You've overstayed your welcome here. The only thing that's kept you relevant until recently was the fact that we needed you to game, and now Linux has figured out how to do that. No longer need we compromise on the security of our machines by accommodating you
9704068
This is the best description for English I have ever seen.
9703936
9704014
9704068
9704414
9704834
While, as non-native English speaker, I find these observations fascinating, I do feel the need to weigh in here.
You do realize that the only word Sunburst definitively identified as Ancient Changeling was "Sol," right? Does that sound English to you?
9704843
Well I don't know about the rest of them, but the question I answered was
I never said anything about it being English...
9704852
Fair enough. I guess the fact that the discussion immediately started revolving around English kinda proves the point you were making.
9704859
What can I say, I can be very convincing!
9703881
I don't either. Is it the red stuff from War of the Worlds?
9704843
Latin?
9704843 Yes, ancient changeling would appear to be Latin, based on the single word match we know.
Like English, Latin was the common tongue of a powerful Empire that spead it across their entire sphere of influence. Thus it became a common language for many societies, even after the power of the original empire faded. In Latin's case, hundreds of years of usage by different, separated groups created derivative languages based on it, the Romance languages.
In the case of English, audio-recordings and global communication may prevent similar fragmentation beyond having dialects. But if there was a disaster causing a post-industrial dark age, I could easily see it creating a group of derivative languages like Latin.
9704867
Yup, its effectively a warning in multiple ways, on how something so commonplace in one situation becomes totally deadyl in another. A similar version is how your common body bugs can under certain mutations and enviromental conditions suddenly turn into a diesese that literally eats you alive in hours.
Further research in the archives suggests that Oppy can be undergoing chaos conversions through complex 3D intersecting sidechannel fields due to NXP asymetric panel stimulationnad, due to the effect not being known at teh time of launch, aluminium interconnects reacting with the silicon oxide insulating layers in the CPU logic to form neurosynaptic memristors. Sort of like 20 plus years GigaFab design evolution, but in the CPU itself.
Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insuficiently advanced.
Any technology, no matter how primative, is indistinguishable from magic to those who dont understand how it works.
The Commodore Amiga 1000 in 1985, that I know of, was the last mass produced commercially available personal home computer that was designed by human hands. All subsequent machines have had to be designed by computer because humans cant handle the complexities.
If you think Magic is hard to understand, you should see some of the real world experiments not just theorised, but demonstrated in the lab.
I think my favourite for weirdness, is the one where they demonstrate seperating a neutron and its spin.
9704843
No. It's Latin. But considering Latin is the single largest of the hundreds of unwilling sources for the bastard that is the English language, I daresay the slightly incorrect comparison is warranted enough
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Derpy makes deliveries at night? Wow, the Equestrian Postal Service really goes all-out, huh? No wonder she needs to take breaks in the middle of Hearth's Warming delivery lines.
9706001
Mama Mia, mama Mia, mama Mia, let me go!
9705861
The Germanic family of languages is actually the largest influence, but the Romantic family is certainly up there on the list.
Most legit explanation possible.
Chrysalis was probably bragging about beating The Unconquered Sun during their duel.
And every one who dared to pint out she was beaten afterwards would be gobbled up by her.
Unless Chrysalis would have an Space Program...
Plot twist: It is!
9707226
Ah, but you speak of FAMILIES of languages, whilst I speak of INDIVIDUAL languages
9706438
BEELZEBUB HAS A DEVIL PUT ASIDE FOR ME! FOR ME! FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Everything about this exchange is great.
In any case, that's certainly a promising lead on hetter understanding Oppy... though of a certain war god intercepts the message somehow...
9708129
French then, not Latin.
Technically English is of the Germanic family, so its most similar to German than any other language, with French being the largest Romantic influencer.
Martian blueberries are pretty.
I feel uncomfortable with this idea.
Go away, my bias for Twilight, let me enjoy the story.
Auntie Stellar?
Is it a good or bad thing that I understand what all of the referenced languages here are?
Ten points to Ravenclaw for the Etymology jokes!
OK now Oppy is reminding me of Rover from the movie planet 51 which was also an intelligent exploration rover though it only had slightly more intelligence than a dog and was obsessed with rocks which met it went absolutely euphoric when it rained on the planet because the rain on planet 51 is literally rocks
Oh she's working on a necklace made of uranium must be the stress that's making her sick
Oh no.
OH NO
11396340
Hmm, nothing like cancer in the morning